


No other version of me I would rather be tonight

by inthedeadofnight



Category: One Direction (Band), Taylor Swift (Musician)
Genre: F/M
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2015-03-02
Updated: 2015-03-02
Packaged: 2018-03-15 23:45:06
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 2,144
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/3466499
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/inthedeadofnight/pseuds/inthedeadofnight
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>"I’m in it if you are. When you’re 30, you know, give me a call. Shoot me a text, we’ll make it happen."</p><p>In which Taylor and Harry stumble into a marriage pact.</p>
            </blockquote>





	No other version of me I would rather be tonight

**Author's Note:**

> Title is a line from Jackie and Wilson by Hozier. This was just a short drabble I thought up tonight based on recent events. And in my wildest dreams it's real.

Taylor posts the picture of her with her hands on Jaime’s pregnant stomach on a Sunday night. Her hands are slightly sweaty as she grips her iPhone and her cheeks are flushed from the two glasses of wine at dinner, and she feels so grateful. Jaime starts giggling as the photo appears on her own feed, and the two sling their arms around each other and compare photos that Kyle had taken of them a moment before. And Taylor’s over the moon excited that she’s about to be a godmother to one of her dearest friend’s baby, and she knows happiness like this just has to be shared. She just doesn’t know with who specifically yet.

She gets a text from Harry around 15 minutes later.

_Tell Jaime congratulations and give her my love. She is glowing._

Taylor can’t help herself as the biggest smile breaks out across her face. She bites her lips and shakes her head, because somehow on his big world tour across the globe, even though they haven’t properly spoken in a few weeks, Harry always pops up in the most surprising and kindest and sweetest ways.

About an hour later, after Jaime and Kyle have left, she settles down on the couch and dials his number. He picks up with a casual “Hello,” on the first ring.

“Hi, I…” And for a second Taylor trails off, because with some friends she’d be honest and say “I just wanted to hear your voice.” But Harry isn’t exactly someone she can do that with. That’s the most complicated thing about trying to maintain a platonic friendship with an ex: you have to filter certain things you might want to say that would probably come out forward or wrong if you actually said them. You can’t always say things like “It’s so good to hear you laugh,” or “I really need a hug from you right now,” without worrying it’s going to be awkward after you do. But Taylor’s been filtering her entire life in interviews and press conferences and even in songs, and she doesn’t mind doing it with a few more phrases between friends. Friendship with Harry is worth it anyways.

“I just wanted to check in and catch up, if you’re free to talk for a bit,” she settles for instead.

“Oh yeah, are you alright?” he asks, and she can hear a horn honk and other traffic sounds in the background, so she figures he must be in a car. She tries to do the time difference math in her head, and silently reprimands herself for not figuring it out before calling him, but she comes to no avail.

“Yeah, I’m good. What time is it there?”

“It’s just past 3 in the afternoon. I’m headed to meet Lou for lunch before we have to get to the arena.”

“Oh, that’s cool. How’s tour going so far?” And she’s not just making small talk, she is genuinely interested. Taylor’s got a lot of friends in a lot of different industries, but not many that are musicians and sell out stadiums and arenas all over the world in the way she does. She doesn’t mean to sound pretentious, but not many people can relate to the extensiveness and insanity of that life, and she feels like Harry is one of the few that can.

“It’s been good,” he answers, and she thinks she can hear a slight smile in his voice. “I really love being back in Japan, it’s one of my favorite places and the fans here are so animated and funny and nice, and they’re very artistic with their signs and even the occasional costume. Actually last night there was one...” 

And he starts telling her about the shows, and the hilarious and kind fans he’s encountered, and how the boys have been peppering their set with songs from the new album, and it needs work but it’s slowly coming together. After his tour stories, he asks her about LA, and she tells him how tomorrow she’s starting auditions for dancers, and then shortly after that she starts her sessions with the choreographer, and she’s nervous but super excited to start preparing the dance numbers for the upcoming tour. And Taylor’s happy. She’s happy that somehow they always end up picking things up right where they left off. They’re both busy people, and they often go a couple weeks without interaction, but it’s never awkward or quiet or strange when they come back to each other. She feels lucky.

“...and it’s gonna be so different actually having someone teach me to dance, since everyone knows I’m a horrible dancer and I always just kind of move to the beat of my own drum,” she giggles, lightheartedly venting about the upcoming dance lessons.

He chuckles out loud, and Taylor presses the phone closer to her ear. She missed the sound. 

“You’re not that bad, come on. You and I both know that when you put your mind to something you can do anything. And I’ve seen you dance for real, not just messing about,”

She scrunches her nose and shakes her head though she knows he can’t see her. “When have you seen me dance seriously?” Olivia stalks over to where Taylor is laying and settles by her head. Somehow over the course of the conversation, Taylor ended up lying on the floor with her feet propped up on the couch. She feels like she’s in high school.

“Um, dirty dancing? Need I say more?” And with his accent it sounds like ‘duhty dahncing,’ and that combined with the memory of them doing the iconic Dirty Dancing move brings a flush to her cheeks and suddenly she’s laughing uncontrollably. He laughs along with her, and for a brief moment the phone line is filled with the ring of their laughter, and she thinks that it’s so nice that the harmony between the two sounds seems to be in perfect tune.

“Yeah, I remember,” she manages when she’s finally calmed down, and she hears the catch in his breath at that. And suddenly it’s not funny anymore, and she lightly smacks her palm to her forehead, because yeah, she’s not supposed to say that. She’s not supposed to tell him she remembers. That was one of their ground rules. 

It’s silent for a moment. Taylor can still hear the traffic sounds on his end, and she feels bad that he’s probably stuck in a gridlock. She wonders what the weather’s like in Tokyo, wonders if it’s as unexpectedly chilly as it was when she first landed in LA the other day. She wonders how long he’ll be there.

“Taylor,” he says suddenly, breaking the silence. And she doesn’t think she’ll ever get tired of hearing her name in his accent. _Tayluh._

“Yeah?”

“I…I read an interview of yours the other day.” He sounds hesitant. “I was scrolling through twitter after sound check and saw a link that kind of baited me in,” he adds quickly with a smile, as if he needs to excuse his actions.

“Yeah?” she prods. 

“Yeah, and well…I think you said something that sort of caught my eye, you said you didn’t think you’d be married at 30?” He poses it as if he’s asking her a question, but he doesn’t give her any time to respond. “I just was a bit shocked as to why you’d say that, I mean I feel like I just thought that’s something you wanted and I didn’t expect that to be your answer,” And he’s slightly on the edge of nervously babbling on until he stops abruptly, probably figuring it’s better to just hear what she has to say. 

Taylor looks down the hall at the dining room where Jaime and Kyle were seated with her about an hour ago. And her cheeks suddenly get really hot and she’s slightly sad. Because yeah, she does want a family. She wants what Jaime and other people have. Ever since she was a little girl dreaming about princesses and fairy tales, she’d always imagined herself being a wife and mother one day. But then came a point in her life where that image became less of a given and more of a wishful thought, a hopeless dream. It wasn’t guaranteed anymore. And she doesn’t know what to say to anyone who asks her why she feels that way. And she wants more than anything for that feeling to go away, and for someone to come into her life and make her feel foolish for ever believing it. But she’s just not sure.

She realizes she hasn’t replied to Harry yet when he starts speaking, fast. “I’m sorry if I’m offending you in any way I didn’t mean to, I—"

“Harry,” she interrupts him with a smile, hoping he can hear it in her voice. “It’s okay,” she sighs. “I guess I just…I don’t know. I mean, I do want a family one day, of course I do. But 30 is so close! It’s 5 short years away and I…I don’t see me suddenly meeting my future husband and being married with a kid by the time those 5 years go by. But who knows? I obviously don’t,” she ends with a quiet laugh.

“Well what about the pact?”

“What pact?”

“The 30 year old pact? The whole ‘If you and a friend are still single at 30…’” he trails off before continuing. “I mean, I know you’ve got one with Ed but I reckon him and Athina are getting pretty serious, so you should probably try to have a backup,” And he says it with a laugh and a smirk but she thinks she knows exactly what he’s suggesting.

“Hahaha,” she says sarcastically, giving her a few seconds to figure out how to respond. “Um…I don’t know actually. You’re right about Ed, I guess,” she smiles, picking at a thread in the throw pillow sitting next to her on the floor. “I don’t know, I guess I’ll just be alone? I don’t think I know how to go about finding a backup replacement.” And she hopes the conversation is going where she thinks it’s going, but she’s unsure and hesitant about it and almost wants to make up a lie about Olivia knocking over a bottle of wine from dinner just so she can hang up the phone.

“Well, I’m just saying,” he says confidently and smoothly, and Taylor envies him. How he always seems to have the ball in his court, the upper hand. How he never seems out of sorts. “If you needed another pact and couldn’t find one, you always have me.”

She giggles at his words but doesn’t say anything, and he continues. “I know you’ve got four years on me but it could work. I’m in it if you are. When you’re 30, you know, give me a call. Shoot me a text, we’ll make it happen,”

And they’re both laughing at this point, and the tone of the conversation is lighthearted and easy, and Taylor plays along. But they both know that they’re not really joking. Taylor quietly lets out a breath she didn’t know she had been holding. It’s weird that after all this time, she’s still surprised when Harry feels the same way about things that she does. She doesn’t know if that’s a good or bad thing. She supposes it’s good that he always keeps her guessing, but she also hopes that someday she’ll be able to have his answers before she has to miserably and nervously wait for them. That instead of hiding their cards from each other, both hands will be laid out on the table for each other to see. Maybe someday.

Taylor slyly says something along the lines of “We’ll see,” and then transitions into how that reminds her of a Friends storyline. And soon after that they’re swapping opinions on Monica and Chandler before Harry’s car finally arrives at its destination.

“Don’t be a stranger, okay? We shouldn’t go so long without talking,” he tells her as they’re saying their goodbyes, and he sounds genuine and almost pleading. Like maybe he missed her just as much as she missed him. And she promises she’ll try to be better, and tells him to do the same, and then they hang up. She gets up off the floor and tidies up the dining room before heading upstairs for bed.

As she settles in under the covers, after she’s set her alarm for the busy day tomorrow, she closes her eyes and smiles. And she realizes that they both know. Taylor in Los Angeles and Harry in Tokyo. Taylor and Harry in any part of the world at any given moment. They both know how their story ends. And for that, she is thankful.


End file.
